Kompromat

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

It had been a long day. Fyodor Stephanov reckoned that he had written twelve blogs that evening, which was two more than his quota. It was hard work. You had to use your brain, as well as your imagination.

Natasha, his girlfriend, was visiting friends in Moscow and wouldn’t be back until the weekend. Stephanov was looking forward to having a quiet beer and watching a spot of television before he turned in.

His three-hour stint finished at midnight. It was less than a half a mile from Savushkina Street to his apartment on the eighth floor of a Soviet-style apartment block. Usually it took him about ten or fifteen minutes to cover the distance, allowing time for a cigarette along the way.

Two men, who obviously knew his schedule, were waiting for him in the lobby of the building. He recognized them at once. They were both Chinese. He had dealt with them on several occasions, back in the days when he was hawking Kompromat on the black market. They’d even had a Chinese meal together one night. Ling was older than Kong but both were tough-looking customers.

‘What are you doing here?’ he tossed the stub of his cigarette into a bin.

‘We’ve come to talk to you.’

‘What about?’

‘Let’s go up to your apartment,’ Ling said.

They sat round the kitchen table in his flat. Stephanov had some cans of Baltica in the fridge and he passed them round.

‘So what’s the problem?’ he asked.

‘The problem is that material you sold us,’ Ling told him. ‘You said they filmed that English guy with the two ladies. We’ve had word back that the man on the bed with the girls wasn’t the English guy at all. It was someone else. They want to know who it was. They want the footage, the original footage.’

Stephanov swore under his breath. That bloody film! He wished he had never got involved in the first place.

Well, he couldn’t give them the film. Lyudmila Markova and her team had bagged everything up and taken it away with them.

‘I can’t give you the footage. I don’t have it. FSB Moscow took it. You’ll have to ask them!’

His visitors didn’t appreciate the joke. As part of the Chinese Ministry of State Security’s extensive net of agents in Russia, they were under great pressure to deliver the goods. When Beijing said ‘jump’, you jumped.

Ling took a long pull at his beer. Normally they would have resorted to violence, but with Stephanov it was different. He might have been selling Kompromat material on the black market, but he was still FSB.

‘What can you give us?’ Ling said. ‘Our clients are anxious.’

Stephanov stood up. ‘I’ll be right back.’

This was the moment, in cinematic terms, when he would have popped out of the room for a moment only to come back with a loaded pistol to turn the table on the intruders.

But Stephanov didn’t have his weapon that evening. He had gone straight from the FSB office to Savushkina Street without it. When you’re sitting in front of the computer, you didn’t need a suspicious bulge in your back pocket.

‘I’ll come with you,’ Kong said. He stood close to Stephanov in the bedroom, while Stephanov rummaged through a chest of drawers.

‘Got it!’ Stephanov exclaimed as he found what he was looking for.

Back in the kitchen, he spread the US-flag boxer shorts on the table. ‘You can have them. For free. Just don’t come back.’

Ling fingered the soft, silky material. ‘This is good. Very good. These are boxer shorts the man was wearing? You sure of that?’

‘I’d stake my life on it,’ Stephanov replied. He examined the inscription on the waistband. ‘See what it says: “Bloomingdales’ finest”!’

‘How much you think these US-Flag boxer shorts are worth?’ Ling asked.

‘A lot of money in the right hands,’ Stephanov replied. ‘There could be DNA, for example.’

When Ling and Kong had gone, Stephanov poured himself another beer. At least they hadn’t beaten him up, he thought. Maybe he ought to retire.

With three weeks to go before the Referendum, Edward Barnard took time off for lunch at the Athenaeum Club. He’d been a member for years. He didn’t go to the club often, but when he did he usually enjoyed himself. Most of the people who belonged to the Athenaeum were tremendously brainy. The club kept a special book recording the names of club members who had won the Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry, economics or whatever. Barnard was very ready to recognize that he wasn’t in that league. He didn’t regard himself as an intellectual – he’d read geography at Oxford – but he was capable of contributing to a discussion in the bar or around the Members Table if he felt he had something to say.

One of the nice things about the Athenaeum was that it had reciprocal arrangements with similar clubs around the world. If you were visiting Sydney, for example, you could dine at the prestigious Union Club, and vice versa.

Barnard found himself sitting at the long Members table next to a tall, greying Australian. ‘My name’s Irwin Jones. I’m Professor of Toxicology from Sydney University,’ the man introduced himself.

‘And I’m an MP campaigning to take Britain out of the EU,’ Barnard replied. ‘Does toxicology include the study of spider bites?’

‘It certainly does.’

Barnard spent the next few minutes telling the Australian Professor about his recent narrow escape in the Kimberley.

‘I had a terrace room at Lazy-T. I guess the spider came in through the open window. They rushed me to Kununurra District Hospital. Took the dead spider too. Luckily there was a top toxicologist there that night. He took one look at the thing and said it was a Sydney Funnel Web Spider. Atrax Robustus. He even gave it the Latin name.’

Professor Jones looked surprised. ‘Can you remember the name of the toxicologist? I might give him a call.’

‘Professor Cohen, as I recall. I’m going to send him a note. He probably saved my life.’

‘Cohen? I know Cohen. Toxicology’s a small world. He used to work at Sydney Hospital before moving west. Will you forgive me a moment? I need to use the phone.’

‘There’s a booth downstairs where you can make a call,’ Barnard told him. ‘The club doesn’t allow mobiles in the public rooms.’

Minutes later, the Professor returned. ‘I talked to Cohen. Woke him up actually. He remembered you well. Said he gave you the Red Back Spider anti-venom but basically he didn’t expect it to work. The venom of the Sydney Funnel Web Spider is based on the protein toxin robustoxin. The venom of the Red Back Spider is based on latrotoxins. Apples and oranges. Said you were lucky to survive. People do survive a bite from the Funnel Web Spider without anti-venom treatment, but not many, I must say.’

The Professor paused. The kedgeree on his plate needed his attention. Then he added quietly, ‘You ought to call the police, you know.’

Barnard was puzzled. ‘Why would I call the police? I was bitten by a spider. I recovered. End of story.’

‘I fear not.’ The Professor pushed his plate aside. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’

They took their coffee out on to the terrace, overlooking the garden. London, that June morning, could not have looked lovelier.

‘Look, it’s quite simple,’ Jones explained. ‘There are no, repeat no, Sydney Funnel Web Spiders in Western Australia. That’s why the hospital in Kununurra didn’t have the specific anti-venom for that sort of spider. They are simply never found up in that part of the country. As a matter of fact, the only place in the world that they are found is in Sydney and the neighbouring area. That’s why they’re called what they are. And that’s why Cohen was so confident about his identification. He comes from Sydney himself. Knows the critters well.

‘So if there are no Sydney Funnel Web Spiders up in the Kimberley,’ Professor Jones continued, ‘how is that you got bitten by one? Have you got any enemies, Mr Barnard? Someone was trying to kill you up there, that’s for sure. If they have tried once and failed, they might try again.’

‘Good God!’ Barnard exclaimed. ‘I see what you’re getting at.’

Just at that moment a cloud passed across the sun. Barnard shivered.

Sir Oliver Holmes, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, made space in his diary that very afternoon.

Barnard walked across St James’s Park to New Scotland Yard. Deputy Commissioner, Cornelia Gosford, a handsome woman of medium height with short, salt-and-pepper hair, was with Sir Oliver when he arrived.

‘I’ve asked my deputy to join us. Cornelia looks after our links with the Three Fs. That’s Friendly Foreign Forces, Australia included.’

Barnard, in his long career as a politician, had met Cornelia Gosford on several occasions. She was bright as a button. Had a doctorate from Cambridge. Probably belonged to the Athenaeum too. The word on the street was that she was in line to succeed Sir Oliver when he stepped down a few months from now. If she did, she would be the first woman to head the Met. Not that she wouldn’t have made it in her own right anyway.

‘Delighted to see you again, Deputy Commissioner,’ he said.

Barnard told his Kimberley story once more. Sir Oliver didn’t interrupt, but once or twice he made notes on a scratch pad.

When Barnard had finished, Sir Oliver looked at his Deputy. ‘Do you want to come in at this point, Deputy Commissioner?’

Cornelia Gosford just had a query. ‘You said the couple who ran the house at Lazy-T, as opposed to the station hands, were called Ching and Fung. Do you know their full names? Of course, we can find out, but it would be easier if we had the family name. It sounds to me as though there’s an MSS cell up there in the Kimberley. A murderous one too if your story is anything to go on. Didn’t you say Selkirk had to top-up the fuel that night when they were trying to rush you to hospital? Somehow, apparently, Ching had forgotten to fill up the heli. I’ll get on to our friends in the Australian Federal Police – the AFP – at once. They’ll probably need a search warrant for Lazy-T. Is Mickey Selkirk still there?’

‘I think he’s back in the States,’ Barnard said.

‘That’s a pity,’ Sir Oliver cut in. ‘I’m sure the AFP would have wanted Mickey Selkirk to be there when they raid his property. Lots of mileage there in PR terms!’

They all laughed. When Cornelia Gosford had left the room to set things in motion, Sir Oliver Holmes said to Barnard, ‘We ought to give you a bodyguard, at least until the Referendum’s over. We’ve been assessing the threat to public figures for some time. We think you qualify for protection.’

‘Good God!’ Barnard protested. ‘I’m just a figurehead in this campaign. The Leave side needed a chairman and my name popped out of the hat. The only reason I’m chairman is that I stuck my head above the parapet before the others did.’

‘Don’t underestimate your influence, Edward,’ Sir Oliver said. ‘Leave is within spitting distance of winning this fight. That wouldn’t have happened without you. As we see it, the Chinese Secret Service first tried to blackmail you, then to kill you. Three strikes and you’re out. Whether you like it or not, we’re going to keep an eye on you.’

As Sir Oliver Holmes showed his guest to the door, he murmured, ‘By the way, we’ve finished our work on that file you brought back from Russia. Our report’s with the home secretary. She seems to be sitting on it at the moment. I must say I don’t blame her.’

He held the door open. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, but we think most, if not all, of those documents are genuine. Let the chips fall where they may,’ he concluded cryptically.

‘Do you mean…?’ Barnard began.

‘I don’t mean anything at this moment,’ Sir Oliver said. ‘We were asked to report on the authenticity or otherwise of the documents we examined. That we have done. It is for others to draw the appropriate conclusions. I’m a policeman, not a politician.’

After leaving New Scotland Yard, Barnard walked back into St James’s Park. Girls in summer dresses walked around the lake. Some were sunbathing in bikinis. He sat on a bench and mentally ticked off the names of the waterfowl: Mallard, Shelduck, Wigeon, Gadwall, Teal, Pintail, Shoveler…

A hundred yards away, Jerry Goodman, one of the ‘watchers’ Sir Oliver had put in place that very afternoon, spoke quietly into his radio. ‘Not much going on. He’s watching the birds in St James’s Park. No, I mean the real birds. The birds on the lake. Not the dolly birds. Plenty of those around today too. Over and Out.’